Author: Catherine Coulter
Category: Suspense
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Mrs. Griffin pumped herself up, her bosom attaining new prominence. “What is she doing in your bedchamber and in your bed, my lord?”
Tysen had always enjoyed his share of the Sherbrooke luck. But now it seemed that wondrous luck had deserted him. His bedchamber was very nearly overflowing with people, and poor Mary Rose looked as if she was going to expire on the spot. And now this ridiculous old besom was insulting her at a fine clip, and that made him very angry indeed. He said pleasantly, though it was very difficult, almost beyond him, “Mrs. Griffin, Mr. Griffin—I assume you are standing directly behind your wife, and that is why I don’t see you?”
“Just so. We are here to see what is what.”
“That is obscure enough,” Tysen said. “Before you again take your leave, you can see that Mary Rose has been hurt. She is recovering from her injuries. This is all there is to it, this is your what is what. There is nothing that requires your assistance that I can think of. I hope your carriage is still awaiting you in front of the castle?”
“Rudeness isn’t becoming, even though you are a vicar and an Englishman,” said Mrs. Griffin. “Of course there is more to this than a mere what is what. I ask you, my lord, who are these people? Obviously they are more im-ported wretched English here to torment us.”
Colin eyed the woman with the thin black mustache over her upper lip and her husband, who was still standing behind her, drew himself as tall as Robert the Bruce, wished he had a claymore to swing about, and said, “Ma’am, I am Lord Ashburnham. I am so Scottish that I wear my plaid to bed and even dream in Scottish, not English or Italian. Just who the devil are you?”
To Tysen’s surprise, Mrs. Griffin gave Colin a very quick, very deep curtsy, ruined quickly enough when she opened her mouth. “I am Mrs. Griffin, naturally, my lord. I belong here. I have been coming here for so long that I once even considered marrying Old Tyronne so I could sleep in that bed. I did not marry him, of course, because of Mr. Griffin here, and he was still breathing then, as he is now. Poor Old Tyronne needed more heirs, but alas, I was a bit too advanced in years to provide one.
“Now, I can see that I am needed. There is a conundrum of magnificent proportions here. I—we—are here to resolve everything. First, get that girl out of that bed.”
Tysen rolled his eyes. It kept him from marching up to Mrs. Griffin and either snarling something unvicarlike into her face or throwing her out the window, if only they were wide enough to accommodate her, which he doubted they were.
Sinjun said slowly, still absorbing the irrefutable fact that this woman actually existed and was standing here in Tysen’s bedchamber, “Pearlin’ Jane didn’t tell me about you, Mrs. Griffin.”
“Obviously this Pearlin’ Jane person doesn’t know everything,” said Mr. Griffin, one shoulder showing around his wife.
“If Pearlin’ Jane had told you anything at all about Mrs. Griffin,” Tysen said to his sister, “I doubt you would have stirred from Vere Castle even if my head was under the guillotine blade. You would have written me a letter of condolence and kept your distance.”
“I do not find you amusing, my lord.”
“No, I imagine that you don’t,” Tysen said. “Now, why don’t all of us leave Mary Rose to rest? Perhaps Mrs. MacFardle will provide us tea to pour down our respective gullets. Then perhaps you, Mrs. Griffin, will feel that the conundrum is well in hand and you are free once again to take your leave.”
“I continue not to like your humor, my lord.”
“Sometimes, Mrs. Griffin,” Tysen said, swallowing his gorge since there was no choice at all, “I don’t either.”
“I insist that you satisfy me, my lord,” said Mrs. Griffin.
Tysen said, “I doubt that I am capable of accomplishing that, ma’am. Come along now. Mary Rose isn’t well.”
“She doesn’t deserve to be,” Mr. Griffin said, extending his neck so that he could see around his wife’s shoulder. “No one has anything to do with her.”
I am not a violent man, Tysen said over and over to himself. Even if I were, I would not allow myself to strike an older man who has probably drunk more than his share of smuggled French brandy.
“You go ahead,” Sinjun said, waving them all away. “I wish to speak to Mary Rose. Colin, I wish you to remain and listen so that you may tell me things later that I am perhaps missing in all this.”
Tysen didn’t want to leave his sister with Mary Rose. He wasn’t certain why, but he just knew, all the way to the scar over his left rib that occasionally ached when the weather turned unexpectedly, that it wasn’t a good idea. Colin took his arm. “You have no choice,” Colin said, sympathy and humor in his voice. “Sinjun must needs meddle, you know that.”
“Yes, I know,” Tysen said. “The first time she meddled, I believe, she was four years old and Douglas ended up under a rosebush, hiding from our father.”
“Go, my dear,” Sinjun said, giving him that special smile of hers that he had never trusted her entire life. “I will take care of things here. Trust me. Ah, I believe I was five that time.”
Tysen sighed, smiled at Mary Rose. “I will see you soon. Try to rest. Try to ignore my sister.” He then told Meggie not to flatten Mary Rose with too much protection and followed the Griffins out of the bedchamber.
“Now,” Sinjun said, focusing all of her formidable intelligence on Mary Rose, “let me tell you all about Pearlin’ Jane and what she said to me.”
“Who is Pearlin’ Jane?” Mary Rose asked.
Meggie said, “She is Aunt Sinjun’s ghost. She lives at Vere Castle. She’s been dead for a very long time, but she takes care of Aunt Sinjun.”
“That’s right,” Sinjun said, and sat down in the big wing chair. “She came to me last night and told me that Tysen was in trouble, here at Kildrummy.”
“He is,” Mary Rose said. A tear rolled down her cheek. “I don’t think I believe in ghosts either. I’ve never seen one, even here, and there are supposed to be at least six ghosts hanging about Kildrummy.” She tried to smile through her tears, but it didn’t help.
Meggie squeezed Mary Rose’s hand as she came up on her knees beside her. “Oh, no, don’t cry, please, Mary Rose. Papa will take care of everything. And Aunt Sinjun is very good at meddling, even Papa agrees that she is. Uncle Colin loves her so very much I even heard him say once that he would lock her in his bedchamber and visit her at his whim. That tells you something, doesn’t it?”
There came a snort from Colin, who was seated in the wing chair, reading a newspaper.
“I would like to know what is going on here,” Sinjun said.
“It’s not his responsibility,” Mary Rose said and sniffed. She hated herself. Tears were ridiculous. They did nothing but make her skin itch. “Pearlin’ Jane could have been right, ma’am, but she’s not any longer. I’m leaving. I will not allow Tysen to face any consequences that would harm him. Mrs. Griffin is right. I do not belong here. No one wants me here. I won’t allow Tysen to be any more noble than he already has been. Would you please lend me a gown?”
Now this was interesting, Sinjun thought. This lovely ill young woman was in Tysen’s bed, and she was worried about him and his blasted reputation but not at all about herself? Did she think so little of herself? If she did, it was understandable, given the horrid things that had spewed from that wretched Mrs. Griffin’s mouth. Lovely hair, yes, Mary Rose had lovely hair, and a lovely face. But of course such things wouldn’t weigh heavily with Tysen. She had never seen him like this. Melinda Beatrice had died six years ago. It was a very long time for a man to be alone. Of course, there were Max and Leo and Meggie, but children weren’t the same thing as having someone to laugh with and talk to, to fight with, to make love to. Sinjun had worried about him for a very long time now. She looked at Mary Rose, at that pale face, the scratches, the horrible bruise around her left eye, and said calmly, “A gown? Certainly. I will do anything you need, Mary Rose.” She smiled. “Do call me Sinjun.”
“But—”
Colin said, lowering his newspaper so he could see over it, “Yes, Mary Rose, you may trust my wife. I trust her with my life, and she has protected me very well indeed. Oh, yes, do call me Colin.”
There was no way to rid himself of the Griffins aside from tossing them out into the courtyard on their respective ears. Not a bad thought. After two cups of strong tea, Tysen inquired yet again, “Why have you returned?”
“You see how he tries to be as imperious as Old Tyronne,” Mrs. Griffin said to her husband. Then she turned her cannon on him with a goodly amount of enthusiasm. “It will not work, boy. No matter what you want, you will not marry Mary Rose Fordyce. I will not allow you to marry her. She is a bastard. If she is received anywhere, it is only because of her very respectable aunt and uncle. No, her sort will not be the mistress of Kildrummy.”
Tysen lost every word in his brain at that moment. Wed with Mary Rose? Such a thought had never—no, he was merely protecting her, as a man of God, it was his duty to see that Erickson didn’t rape her, that nothing or no one forced her to do anything against her will, that—he closed his eyes and managed to dredge up words for a simple prayer. They were very straightforward, those words that made up his prayer: Lord, if I strangle this woman, will you find forgiveness for me?
“My dearest wife is concerned about your reputation, my lord,” said Mr. Griffin. “She is worried that you not besmirch the family name.”
Mrs. Griffin saluted her husband over her teacup. It was her fourth cup, and Tysen found, despite being wordless and dazed, that one had to be impressed at her capacity. She then bent her look on Tysen, her black mustache quivering. “Even now, my lord, you may be certain that everyone north of Edinburgh is talking of how the new Lord Barthwick—namely, you—has an unmarried bastard female in his bed. According to Mrs. MacFardle, you stayed with her all night and took care of her intimately, and she is even wearing your nightshirt, and isn’t that—one hesitates to say it, but I must—yes, it is utterly depraved, even for an Englishman.”
Tysen, normally fluent in his speech, smoothly cultured, and quite self-possessed, lost not only his ability to reason and speak again, but also nearly every semblance of life. He stood rigid as a board, frozen in place, staring not at Mrs. Griffin but into himself, deep inside himself where one seldom has reason to look because there are many times shadows there, and doors that are better left closed. But he looked, regardless. What he saw, what he finally fully realized, what was staring him right in the face, was the realization that the miserable old hag was right.
Oh, dear God, he had taken intimate care of her, as if she were his child or his wife. He hadn’t hesitated. By all that was holy, what had he done to Mary Rose? And all for the best motives, all to protect her, to save her, to be the buffer between her and MacPhail. She was wearing his nightshirt, he had taken care of her, looked at her, fully appreciated every white inch of her, which he shouldn’t have done, but since he was a man, there’d been no hope for it.
“Well, my lord? Have you nothing to say for yourself? Did you bed Mary Rose? One doubts she was a virgin because a bastard is seldom a virgin, no matter her age. Will she, a bastard, deliver another bastard into this world? Her dear aunt and uncle, so well respected in these parts, in all their goodness, allowed her to be raised with their own sweet Donnatella. Mary Rose should never have remained in a respectable home. Just look what has happened. She is upstairs lying in your bed. And you, my lord, you allowed it. You freely partook in it. And still you let her stay.”
Tysen slowly shook his head, back and forth. He had looked deep into himself, seen the truth, recognized what he must do, and now he must act. He turned and walked out of the drawing room, the sound of his boots striking the tile in the front entrance hall sharp in his ears. Those boots of his might be a bit dirty, but they made loud, sharp sounds as they hit the tiles. And yet, deep inside himself, he heard nothing. He felt waves of guilt and shame, but now, thank the good Lord, they were receding in the face of his resolve to make things right. He heard Mrs. Griffin’s voice calling after him, but he didn’t understand her words. Indeed, they weren’t even words to his mind.
When he opened the door to his bedchamber, he saw Colin still seated in the big wing chair, still comfortably reading a newspaper, obviously still at his ease. Colin, excellent man that he was, had learned years ago that it was best just to give Sinjun her head.
Sinjun was now seated on the bed, close to Mary Rose, speaking to her, and his dearest Meggie was on her knees next to Mary Rose, holding her hand, nodding at whatever Sinjun was saying. Then Mary Rose looked up and saw him.
“Hello, Tysen,” she said, and he would have had to be a blind man not to see the leap of pleasure in her eyes at the sight of him, the smile that hadn’t been there but a moment before, there now, sweet and honest, and it was for him, and he thought, She should not so openly give me her joy. Is there no hope for it?
15
THEN ALL HER joy died on the spot and she said, looking down, “I am going to Vere Castle with Sinjun. I plan to be a nanny to Fletcher and Jocelyn. She doesn’t want me to be, but I have to do something to earn my keep, don’t I?”
She was leaving?
“I’m not ignorant. I speak Latin. I can instruct Phillip, perhaps I can also teach Dahling to play the bagpipes. I don’t play them well, but I do know several tunes. I do know how to do things. I won’t be useless.”
“You speak Latin?”
He was gaping at her, distracted for the moment.
“Yes, and also a bit of French, although my accent is not terribly pleasant. Since there are no longer Latin speakers about, why, then, no one can criticize my accent.”
She spoke Latin? How ever had that come about? He got himself back on track, just shaking his head at her. “You’re not leaving Kildrummy Castle,” he said, and he even managed to smile at her. Sinjun opened her mouth, but then he saw that she was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. Slowly, very slowly, Sinjun got off the bed and stood beside it for a long moment. Then she held out her hand to her niece. “Come along, Meggie. You, Uncle Colin, and I are going to explore the castle. Will you give us a tour?”
Meggie had no idea what was happening here, but she knew it was something very important, something between her papa and Mary Rose. Mary Rose knew Latin? Goodness, what would Max have to say to that? She nearly leapt off the bed and took her aunt’s hand.
Colin calmly folded his paper and rose. He gave Tysen one long last look, then lightly touched his hand to his wife’s shoulder. Tysen heard Sinjun say, “We don’t have to see that dreadful woman, do we?”
“No, we won’t go near the drawing room,” Meggie said. “I want to show you the hidden garden behind Papa’s library. I believe Mr. MacNeily is working in there. He’s Papa’s estate manager, you know. He is very nice. I wish he would stay, but he is leaving Kildrummy soon now. Oliver is coming to take his place, at least Papa hopes he will.”
Colin said, “That will make Douglas gnash his teeth.”
He heard Sinjun laugh. “Oliver would do marvelously well here at Kildrummy.”
Tysen closed the bedchamber door, locked it. He said as he walked back to the bed, “Just forget this nanny business, Mary Rose. Forget teaching Latin to Phillip and bagpipes to Dahling. You aren’t going anywhere.”
Mary Rose had scooted up, feeling more strong and fit than she had even five minutes before. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him. As he spoke, she noticed, for the first time, that stubborn jaw of his. “I must,” she said, and it hurt to say it, but there was no choice. “Surely you see that.”
“No, I don’t see anything of the kind. Listen to me. We all do what we must. The must to be done in this situation is this: you must marry me. You will be the mistress of Kildrummy Castle in Scotland and you will be a vicar’s wife in my home in England. I live in
a village called Glenclose-on-Rowan. My house is officially called the Old Parsonage, but it’s been known for years and years as Eden Hill House.”
“That is a very romantic name for a parsonage.”
“I suppose so.”
He thought inconsequentially that even with that awful pallor, she looked quite lovely sitting there in his nightshirt, her red hair in soft curls around her head and over her shoulders. Her mouth opened again, but nothing came out. He waited. He was good at waiting. Many times it took a parishioner a goodly number of minutes to screw up his courage to confess a sin.
“I cannot. Surely you know that, Tysen.”
“You cannot what? Marry me? I don’t see that there is anything else for you to do.”
“I will not do that to you,” she said, and her voice had firmed up now, and color was coming into her cheeks. “I came here because I wasn’t thinking straight, because I was afraid to go into Vallance Manor with Erickson’s horse wandering around outside the house, just like he was used to being there, as if he belonged there.
“But no matter. I was wrong, very wrong, to come here and involve you and Meggie.” She drew a very deep breath. “I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself because I was a fool.”
He smiled, a calm, clean smile that showed his lovely white teeth and lit up his blue eyes even more. “Forget this sacrifice business. It is nonsense. I should have told you this sooner. I have three children. Max, my scholar and wit, is nine; Leo, who sings like an angel, gets into more mischief than a devil’s spawn, and stands on his head, is seven. You already know my precocious Meggie. They are all good children, but perhaps you wouldn’t wish to be saddled with three stepchildren.”